Thursday, May 21, 2009

Cola Anyone?

A friend sent me the following joke.

A salesman of a Cola company returns from his Middle East assignment.A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"The salesman explained, "When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very confident that I would do well as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem. I don't know Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters...First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand...totally exhausted.Second poster: The man is drinking our Cola.Third poster: The man is now totally refreshed.And then these posters were pasted all over the place."It should have worked!" said the friend."The hell it should have!” said the salesman. I didn't realize that Arabs read from right to left"

Colas have never been known as being healthy. Cola consumption leads to caries, bone loss, diabetes and problems with metabolism. But the evidence is building that excessive consumption of cola can lead to Hypokalemia - low levels of Potassium in the blood - which can cause life-threatening muscle paralysis, says Moses Elisaf, an intern at the University in Greece’s Ioannina.

Cases of excessive cola consumption are not isolated. The per capita cola consumption in the US is a whopping 212 liters.